Month: November, 2016

Jane Berry has proof her local elected official is a murderer. And yet she can’t get the world to listen. Reporters turn her away, the Party attempt to have her silenced, and her own family – who all voted for him – shun her completely.

The only person who cares is the politician’s daughter, who completely believes Jane. The only problem is, Jane once helped cover up one of the murders and she knows the world cares more about protecting a man, and blaming a woman for past actions – even committed under duress – than doing the complete right thing.

So Jane has a choice to make. If you’re going to die on your sword, should it first be coated in the blood of your enemy? Or do you use it to hack into the landscape and hope the scar becomes a beacon and a reminder.

As Jane walks quietly through the rain, she makes her decision, and heads straight to his house. Words will be spoken.

Like this:

Paul Daniels is killed in a stupid bar fight. He leaves behind two kids he never cared about, half a beer on the table, a lifetime of regrets, and the jacket he wore on the night of his demise – which was stolen seconds after his head hit the floor.

Lisa Porter stole it to keep warm, but she doesn’t realise it might just burn her whole world down. Because there’s a note in the inside breast pocket, and the police, the Yakuza, an ex-KGB agent, and Paul’s ex-wife all want the information scribbled on it.

There are many options available to Lisa, but she takes the dumb one – she reads the note. Now she’s on the run, through the darkness of midnight, trying to work out if Paul Daniels, the previous owner of her jacket, was right about the entire mess of humanity or not.

Like this:

Amanda Yannick is staying at The Black Carousel for a week after her last PI gig went south. It’s supposed to be a place and time to regroup, but she’s thrust back into the shit when her elevator opens early and shows her the third floor, which is covered in dead bodies.

No violence, no sign of a crime, just dead bodies gently laid in most rooms, the hallway, and one on the fire escape.

As she walks through the cooling human litter, Amanda hears a song, one she hasn’t heard since she was a child. And that memory is of the first time she saw a dead body, in her kitchen…

Spread the good word:

Like this:

Billie is still in the first year of running her own cafe. The first year is a dangerous time, many small businesses don’t make it out, and this small business owner might not make it out alive.

As she’s closing the cafe one lazy Sunday afternoon, a tall woman barrels through the door and dives onto the ground. The blood streak left behind her unconscious body on the linoleum floor is the first alarm bell.

But Billie was raised to help others when you can, so she tends to the mysterious woman’s wounds while waiting for paramedics to arrive. When they finally enter, Billie feels off about it, but she doesn’t say anything. Not until she sees the weapons they try to conceal from her view. Billie realises something is amiss and forces these apparent helpers back into their ambulance.

Upon waking, the bleeding woman helps Billie, and then shoots the van up. She tells Billie that she isn’t safe, and she knows this because she’s been hired to kill her.

Now Billie’s best chance of surviving a night on the run from thrill killing Hollywood elites is to trust the woman sent to kill her.

Hannah and Martha live across the street from each other. They have for over 50 years. And they have hated each other for about 47 of those years, with vitriol.

So when Hannah is given a few weeks to live, Martha steps up to do the right thing and protect Hannah’s classified files from invaders in the neighbourhood who would want to know what secrets a retired international spy dying of nuclear contamination poisoning might be hiding in her walls.

But the fools arriving on Rutherford Lane didn’t count Martha into their plans, and they’re going to find this job surprisingly difficult because she might have spent half a century hating her old partner, but she still feels a duty to protect the work they built together.

Like this:

There’s a record in an old shop that’s got some seriously bad knowledge on the B side. A young woman bought it in a stack, and last night she got around to listening to it with a few quiet ciders. This morning, she’s as dead as disco.

It’s been six hours since her demise and the record has changed hands 5 times, leaving a path of over a dozen dead bodies – some identifiable, some…well, a little scratched up.

Melissa Daye is a deaf detective who’s been paid handsomely to locate an oil magnate’s daughter. But his daughter went shopping last weekend, and has a penchant for vinyl, and now Melissa is on the trail of the platter that matters the most in a case that’s going to leave Melissa with some very hard choices to make.

Spread the good word:

Like this:

This time, add in some of those Millennium Falcon ice cubes, we’re getting intergalactic with our noir for 0003 in:

CORUSCANT MOON

A festival of death, ascension, and rebirth looms over Nula Pontoom, a small slum on Coruscant, home planet of the Empire, as the locals use it as an excuse to allow their abusive tendencies to escalate for two days.

Palanda Ormell returns, in shadow, to infiltrate the festival and extract the murderer of a high ranking Empire official. However, she is shocked to discover her father hiding in Nula’s back alleys because she’s assumed him dead for half her life.

Yet here he stands, ready to reconnect, because he’s been stabbed. By a lightsaber. Which he now has. And he knows the price on his head just trebled and he’s going to need his daughter’s help to get off Coruscant and away from the people who want that lightsaber back, because it’s the murder weapon in the case Nula is trying to solve.

The Festival of Sins has begun, Nula, may it not eat your soul before dawn.

Spread the good word:

Like this:

A month-long writing exercise where I propose a pulp noir story title and idea/blurb for it. We hope that you enjoy instalment 0002…

THE MIRROR IN THE ATTIC

Nicole Raimi inherits her grandmother’s rural estate and moves in with a plan to flip it to fund a trip to Europe. But when she pulls the sheet to reveal the mirror in the sunroom, her whole worldview shifts as she stands looking at herself, only ten years in the future.

Through arcane mysticism, the woman Nicole will become is able to communicate with her, and tip her off as to what lies in wait forever in tomorrow, through this antique structure of wood and glass.

Nicole’s life starts to turn around as she has the heads up on problems and opportunities well in advance, and while she doesn’t know how her older self communicates through the looking glass, she never once considers that maybe she’s ended up trapped in there. And will do anything to earn or steal passage back to the real world.

When a pretty, young, transient painter named Molly moves in to upgrade the mansion’s facade, she falls in love with the Nicole in the mirror and thus begins a brutal and passionate dance that will see only one of the three women survive, and the other two cast into a half-life in this world’s reflection.

Spread the good word:

Like this:

Okay, because I’m dumb, and I like to keep real busy, and because #noirvember is my writerly way of doing something anywhere near as cool as #inktober or any of those rad artist sketch things, I’m throwing down a Challenge for the month of November.

#noirvember is a month-long celebration of noir. Watch some old flicks, listen to some Bernard Hermann, and just ride the downward spiral.

So what if we turned this noir event into something a writer could tackle on the fly? Oh, yes, enter the:

For the month of #noirvember, I’m going to write a noir story title and idea [written as a blurb whenever I can] every day and post them around for a bit of dark fun. Nothing too long, maybe add the opening line of the story if you’re feeling nasty. But that’s the challenge.

I like setting challenges for myself, as a writer, it keeps me fresh. As such:

#noirvember2016 0001

THE ABYSS INSIDE

Erica Farrell is a loving housewife and mother saved by a heart transplant, but afterwards she discovers she’s lost all emotion.

Packing a gun into her belt, she steals a car and sets off for her solution.

It’s not going to be an easy heist, but Erica always knew a good heart these days is hard to find.

And here’s why you should head along through the link and slap down some money, if you dig.

Backers in the first 24 hours at $3+ get themselves 4 extra all ages downloads that night for amazing books – MORE INFO HERE

This is an all ages sci fi story with a young female lead that’s got intergalactic adventure and is also deeply about how we deal with some of the hardest human emotions

If you make your own comics, you can pledge to get Alfie Gallagher to ink you one, and he’ll send you the art, while Triona Farrell colours the file and emails you that for use, strike quickly because this one won’t last – MORE INFO HERE

Oh, and every time we hit backer totals of 100 increments, I’m going to unlock 5 pledges to get:

EIR Post Parcel pledge level

@ $30, which will include:

EIR – the comic printed up

FATHERHOOD – a one-shot comic I wrote in 2013 for the parents out there

EIR Character Cards – I’ll print 3 character cards out, on card, just for you

EIR pin up print – an A4 print of the pin up!

A special, one of a kind, printed and signed script cover sheet with a 6 word story on it and a helmet sketch from Ryan K Lindsay.

So keep your eyes on my backer count and be ready to pounce, the first batch just went live, I wonder how long they’ll last. See you at 200, I guess.

This is my fourth Kickstarter campaign, raising over $10,000 for DEER EDITOR over 2+ years, and I’ve always delivered, and always make it a habit to make sure my backers get plenty and plenty of extras for their money.

This book is also insanely gorgeous, as Alfie/Triona just level up as an art team and bring everything out in beautiful four colour.

Still unsure, scope this great early review by LJ Phillips at Black Ship Books, where he says, “What makes the story so touching is the simplicity and sweetness of the conclusion. It ends with hope. Sometimes we don’t need to believe in monsters so much as to believe that we can defeat them.”

Hit the campaign up, look around, get in cheap, get in for art, get in however you want, and please spread the word – indie DIY comics is a hard game, every recommendation matters, and books can die on the vine from apathy, so I hope we’ve excited you. EIR is something personal, and something wildly fun.